CRIB
                   a one-person cribbage game
                  (two, if you count the VAX.)




 1  AUTHOR AND DISCLAIMER

 Dave Weigel
 Programmer/Analyst
 Diagonal Data Corporation
 9700 Newton Avenue South
 Bloomington, MN, USA  55435

 (I welcome any and all helpful hints to improve the play of  the
 game and its strategy!)


 This program is not a product of Diagonal Data Corporation,  and
 is  provided  strictly  AS  IS.   Sole  responsibility  for  the
 contents of this program lies with the author.  The  program  is
 provided  to  DECUS members free of charge, and is therefore not
 to be  sold  or  reproduced  for  profit  without  the  author's
 consent.



 2  INTRODUCTION

 CRIB    is     a     single-player,     vaguely     intelligent,
 fun-for-the-whole-family  version  of  the  card  game cribbage.
 CRIB stores statistics on each game played and, after a game  is
 over,  displays  the  player's  "career" records.  The game also
 stores records  of  how  each  played  card  works  in  a  given
 situation,  and  learns  from  its  mistakes.   Because  it uses
 VAX/VMS's SMG$ screen handling routines, it can be played on any
 VMS-supported terminal without code modification.



 3  INSTALLATION

 CRIB requires two data  files  to  run.   One,  CARDHISTORY.DAT,
 contains  the  history  of  each  card  played  in order for the
 computer to correctly choose a card to  play  the  next  time  a
 similar   situation   turns  up.   The  other,  PLAYHISTORY.DAT,
 contains one record for each game played.  These files are to be
 assigned  the  logical GAME:, and will be created at run-time if
 they do not exist, provided that the logicals are  assigned.   A
 complete  compilation and installation procedure might look like
 this:

        $ basic crib
        $ create smgdef.mar
CRIB                                                            Page 2


         .TITLE  SMGDEF
                 $SMGDEF GLOBAL
         .END
        $ macro smgdef
        $ link crib,smgdef
        $ run crib



 4  TECHNICAL NOTES

 4.1  How The Game Gets Better

 When the computer needs to play a card, a strategy  point  value
 is  given to each card remaining in the computer's hand, and the
 card with the highest point value is played.  This  point  value
 has  two components:  basic cribbage strategy and a check on the
 situation's history.  These are the point values  of  the  basic
 strategy  (the  pronoun "I" refers to the computer, and "you" is
 the player):

 1.  If this card makes four-of-a-kind, add 80 points.

 2.  If   this   card   makes   three-of-a-kind,   add    10    *
     ((CardsAlreadyPlayed       +       MyCardsLeftToPlay)      /
     YourCardsLeftToPlay+1) points.  Add an additional 20  points
     if I still hold the fourth card of the same rank, or if this
     card is the fourth card played  of  this  rank,  or  if  the
     fourth  card of this rank is the cut-card, or if playing the
     fourth card of the same rank would bring the count  to  over
     31.

 3.  If   this   card    makes    two-of-a-kind,    add    3    *
     ((CardsAlreadyPlayed       +       MyCardsLeftToPlay)      /
     YourCardsLeftToPlay+1) points.  Add an additional 12  points
     if  I  hold another card of this rank.  Add an additional 10
     points if a card of this rank has  been  played  before  the
     card  I  am  about to pair, or if a card of this rank is the
     cut-card, or if playing another  card  of  this  rank  would
     bring the count to over 31.

 4.  If this card  makes  a  run  of  three  or  more,  add  3  *
     (NumberOfCardsInRun) points.

 5.  If this card makes the count 5, subtract 5 points.

 6.  If this card makes the count 10, subtract 3 points.

 7.  If this card makes the count 15, add 15 points.

 8.  If this card makes the count 21, subtract 8 points.

 9.  If this card makes the count 30, add 3 points.
CRIB                                                            Page 3


10.  If this card makes the count 31, add 20 points.

11.  If this card is an ace, subtract 3 points.

12.  If this card is a two, subtract 1 point.

13.  If this card is a five, subtract 5 points.

14.  If this card is a jack, subtract 3 points.

15.  If this card is a queen, add one point.

16.  If this card is a king, add three points.

17.  If this card is adjacent to another card in rank and playing
     to a run-of-three would count to 31, subtract 13 points.

18.  If this card is adjacent to another card in rank and playing
     to  a  run-of-three  would count to less than 31, subtract 8
     points.